Management poem

Running on the treadmill makes me sweat
Thoughts of elliptical runs through my head
Bits by bits the sweat trickles down
O yes! I think I am getting drown

Writing in my journal
Rushing to get works done external
Recording expenses and planning tomorrow’s spending
O yes! I think I can increase some saving

3 a.m another sleepless night
Piles of books gather in sight
O I said I procrastinated again
I blame shows such as Gossip Girl and 90210

What is to prioritize first?
What is more important to occur?

It all comes down to if I can manage to do everything all at once

Communication via Blog

Having a blog is an important tool used to understand this class for purposes of both learning about the materials and getting to know of our fellow classmates. It helps me at least reflect back to the class activities we had done and what I got out of from those activities. It also provides a useful communication passage for number of us to get to know each other. By reading and commenting to other people’s blogs, we get a sense of knowing the similarities and differences in us—our dreams (from Power of Vision) and our personalities (from personal profile system). It did help me in meeting others via online and extended to communicating in class. The blog initiated communication between classmates who I didn’t get a chance to talk in class. It helps to establish a more comfortable and learning experience. It counts for 20% of our grade (required no outside research), which I think is beneficiary. It is definitely an easier task than writing a paper or essays relating to management, because the topics we wrote for are merely reflection of what we learned.

I am not exactly sure if I will still use the blog after this class has ended, because I have a Xanga which I have been writing on since high school. I might come back to this blog for mostly academic purposes.

Finally, I do think that the blog should remain a component for this course, because it is an effective tool (at least to me it is). I think it can be improved if students write more on it, using it as both academic and personal use, because from what I see most people including me, we just posted assigned blog on the topics we had to write, but we rarely posted any other ones other than the assignments. Maybe some people don’t have the habit of writing blog, but it will be a good idea if the professor can give an extra credit of 1 or 2 for people who use the blog constantly, so that way, there is more communication between students.

Trip to McDonal--A Special order: Picky Picky

The trip to McDonald was hectic. The staff who took our special order for “hamburgers with exactly four pickles and small French fries with no salt” looked confused, thus she made us repeat it several times.

Most fast food restaurants punch in the orders systematically. The staff input the orders into the system, and other staffs would prepare the food. When we requested for our special orders, she was unable to input our orders with exactly four pickles. Consequently, she spoke in Spanish to the staff in the back to clarify our orders. By her tone and her facial expression, I could tell she was not pleased to serve us.

To make the matter worst, we embroiled in obtaining our receipts separately. We explained in the beginning that we wanted individual receipt but we would pay the total together. Maybe we didn’t make it clear, because she only gave us one bill, and the bill didn’t show four pickles or fries with no salt. We asked her to print four more receipts, but she was unable to do so. Meanwhile, there were many people lining up behind us. She started to look even more aggravated, despite that, we continued to ask for the receipts. Finally, she looked for the manager for assistance. He, too, was unable to print more receipts because he didn’t want to mess up the transactions that were already in the system. So we asked if he could write us the receipts stating our requests. Luckily for us, he took the time to do that (I felt that he just wanted us to get out of there and serve the next customers).

Although the order took longer, it was completely correct. On top of my burger, there was a slip tagged on printed “extra pickle”. I guess it was used for the staffs to identify the orders. The food preparation itself did not take long, but it took more than 10 minutes for the manager to write the receipts.

The communication between the staffs was less verbal and more systematic. Each person was put into his/her own role performing specific task. There were three people involved in the ordering—the angry staff, the manager, and the staff in the back. I felt guilty for causing such hassle for the workers.

I didn’t like the customer service I was getting. I could see from the staff’s perspective that the order was unusual, but as an employee, she should show more patience and care toward customers. The manager was there when she took the order, but he didn’t make any remark towards her attitude. He gave workers more freedom in their work performance rather than restricting them to act accordingly.

I would say they cooperated well among one another (not mentioning the confusion part about the receipt). They assisted one another when needed. I would give it 7 out of 10 for their work.

If I were the consultant, I would definitely ask the staff to have better customer service toward special orders and also have a more advanced input registrar machine (the one that is more flexible in punching in special orders). This way, the staffs can be better prepared for the challenges in the future, and the customers can have a more pleasurable buying experience.